If Rahul Dravid is to be believed, he is ‘as clueless as anybody else’ when it comes to predicting the behaviour of pitches in India.
Spoken with a shrug of a shoulder, it’s to be taken with a pinch of salt. After the Indian team reassembles in Rajkot next week, Dravid will be by the curator’s ear.
Earlier, after India’s Cape Town Test win, Rohit Sharma shed diplomatic jargons to say, “We know pitches in India will spin, but people don’t like it because it turns from ball one.”
We are yet to see that happen in the series, even though England may have come to India anticipating designer tracks and the accompaning early puff of dust. While Olie Pope’s brilliant 2nd innings 196 – the difference between the two sides at Hyderabad – was a masterclass in playing spin, the match also saw both teams posting 400-plus totals. In the second Test at Visakhapatnam, the pitch took progressively less turn.
Those involved in Indian cricket’s backroom planning say, a call was taken before the start of the series to have spin-friendly pitches, but not ones which would crumble quickly. There are many reasons for this decision. It was presumed that pitches that don’t offer cheap wickets to spin would expose England’s inexperienced spin attack. Another was an admission that India’s current batting line-up isn’t the very best anymore, to counter such conditions. Virat Kohli’s absence compounded matters.
“To be fair, there have been challenging wickets over the last few years. And it’s been a bit of a challenge for some of our young batsmen to adapt,” Dravid said after the Hyderabad defeat. “A lot of these guys do play a lot of white-ball cricket and maybe don’t get a lot of time to get to play a lot of first-class cricket. So they’re learning.”